Wow. I’m still processing it, but what an incredible article. The premise (as I understand it) is that Trump’s racism – above and beyond any recent presidential candidate – was the key to his success, and it was largely due to a backlash against having a black president. I think he makes a good case.
The article utilizes the concept of “whiteness” very frequently. In my experience, this is a frequently misunderstood concept. It’s not the biological fact of ancestry or skin color. It’s a sociological phenomenon that was manufactured sometime around the 17th-18th centuries, largely in the US (but also elsewhere), in order to pit lower classes against each other such that the wealthy and powerful can remain wealthy and powerful. Before “whiteness”, in America at least, lower class white people and black people actually got along reasonably well – there were certainly a lot of differences and conflicts, but they were orders of magnitude less than those in 19th century America and Jim Crow. And in my understanding of history, this is absolutely true – in 17th century colonial America (or at least the first half), interracial marriage was legal and, while uncommon, wasn’t as unheard of as it would have been in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 1640s and 1650s, “several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards and purchased indentured servants of their own.” In the 1690s, Virginia ordered that all free blacks be deported. There’s much more to read about this, in these links and elsewhere, but the thrust is that relations between whites and blacks in America were deliberately made worse by those in power, through laws and cultural practices, thus creating a sense of “whiteness” that didn’t exist before in that form.
Not buying it. Romney lost the election to Obama when all indications (i.e., the economy) pointed to the election being Romney’s to lose. In order to believe this guy, one has to assume that the backlash was greater when the alternative candidate was white than when the alternative candidate was black.
The Democrats have to get past this idea of blaming everything* on racism.
*not meant literally, for anyone who tries to nit pick.
IMO, the “light at the end of the tunnel”, at least politically speaking, is for the Democrats to finally accept this fact of life (that racism is still hugely significant among white American voters), and work around it. It doesn’t mean the Democrats can’t win elections – it just means that the current Democratic coalition isn’t compatible with intense and focused outreach to the “white working class” (i.e. white working people who voted for Trump after having voted Democratic in many past elections). IMO, there’s no way to appeal directly to the “white working class” that voted for Trump that wouldn’t turn off and depress turnout for other vital members of our coalition (chiefly young people and minorities).
Haven’t read the article, if I ever get around to it, but although I cannot find it through search a few years ago I read one of those magazine internet articles ( like ‘History’ ) on temperance I believe which mentioned how one of the Adamses was propelled along his revolutionary way by wandering the docks and seeing in the taverns men Drinking ! Gambling ! Embracing Lewd Women ! Smoking ! and Kissing black Women ! And worse of all, not being continuously engaged in Hard Work for the betterment of their employers, as befits a Diligent, Thrifty Godly Man.
All totally ignored by the Governor and the lax British regime, who just didn’t care as he did !
Probably Samuel.
Really? There is no other way to read the presidency of Trump than as the inevitable, apocalyptic end of humanity created by the concept of whiteness?
Trump is certainly the most dangerous president - but that’s because of his incredible, willful ignorance and borderline personality.
Trump certainly panders to racism, no question of that.
Seems the main target of the article was Democrats who do not believe that racism is the be-all and end-all of American politics.
Problem for the writer (and those that follow the writer’s theory): how to explain Obama, a Black man, being elected in the first place, if racism is the be-all and end-all?
Second problem: if the theory is true, the only way to win elections in America is to pander to “whiteness” - which, as we have just been informed, is an apocalyptic threat to civilization itself.
I think that’s an extreme exaggeration (and partial misreading) of what Coates said. More like (by my reading, anyway) Trump is so dangerous because the concept of whiteness allowed such an obviously morally and intellectually deficient person to be elected president of the most powerful country in history. And this danger is increased because many writers can’t or won’t accept this.
Right – none of which would have been possible without the power and influence of whiteness.
I think Democrats who don’t recognize the power and influence of racism are indeed a target of the article.
I don’t think he’s saying it’s the “be-all and end-all” – just that it’s still hugely significant, and hugely powerful. And that the way for Democrats (and, by implication, people who want to be on the right side of history) to win elections is to stop elevating the “white working class” as somehow the most important group of voters. He doesn’t say this directly, but I think he’d agree with me that Obama won because he successfully excited young people and minorities to vote in numbers as never before – enough to swamp those white voters still highly motivated by racism – and I think this is the way Democrats need to go in the future.
I think, by your response, that you may be missing a crucial point of the article. Romney, and for that matter Hillary, are white (small letters, an attribute), whereas Trump is WHITE (large letters, an identity). By the same token Obama is black, whereas those reacting to him see him as BLACK.
No, what I’m missing is how all this changed between 2012 and 2016. And the idea that Romney is not WHITE (to the extent that even exists) is laughable.
Excellent and well thought out article. Thanks, iiandyiiii.
The key idea in the article that struck me is that the Democratic party didn’t leave working class whites behind by pursuing race/gender politics. It was the working class whites that left the Democratic party. The argument appears to be that while they had bought into the promise of hope & change of the Obama campaign in 2008, they soon became disenchanted with the relative lack of economic change and subsequently lost hope.
Without putting too much thought into the actual causes for their lack of economic success, they chose a candidate that exploited their worst fears and scapegoated the “other”.
I agree with this. But before we panic, it would only take about 10% of those people to come to their senses and the Democrats would be winning by landslides. And, a good candidate speaking to their issues like someone such as Biden could do, would easily bring back 10% of the white working class. (I’m not saying Biden should run in 2020, he’s just the type of candidate that could stay true to progressive ideals and speak to the white working class)
I think that will be a lot harder than just appealing to and exciting young people and minorities – if they vote like they did in '08 and '12, then the Democrats win pretty easily, I think, even if the white working class votes like it did in '16.
I’ll try one more time - Romney is not selling WHITENESS. He is just merely white. Trump, in addition to selling gaudy wealthiness, is selling WHITENESS (White Supremacy).
I think this is, by my reading and inference, what the article posits changed between '12 and '16: that Trump was much more explicitly “WHITE” than Romney, thus appealing on racist grounds to many whites in a way that Romney didn’t, along with the Democrats failing to excite Obama’s coalition which could have overcome this deficit.
So is that what we have to look forward to? Well-meaning ignorant racists trying to articulate the difference between a “white guy” and some “cracker-ass cracker”?
And I’m not surprised that John Mace and Malthus disagree. Coates is not meeting them where they are on race issues. You guys: I cannot recommend strongly enough that you read some books on race in America. My recommendations, likely to meet you where you are:
[ul]
[li]The Warmth of Other Suns[/li][li]The Color of Law[/li][li]Just Mercy[/li][/ul]
How can it be an “extreme exaggeration (and partial misreading)”? I was literally just paraphrasing the conclusions of the article, which I actually quoted in full immediately above!
Here it is again:
To break it down:
the axiom is that whiteness is a threat, not to just Blacks, but to the whole world.
The instinct is to claim this is an exaggeration.
However, there is no other way to interpret Trump’s presidency.
He’s the most dangerous president.
His danger in increased by the fact that those who study him cannot identify his essential nature (whiteness) because they too “are implicated in it” (whiteness).
The natural interpretation: there is no other way to analyze the presidency of Trump other than as an apocalyptic threat to humanity created by “whiteness”. Those who claim that the threat of whiteness is an exaggeration are mistaken - Trump’s presidency proves the thesis. The danger is heightened by the fact that even those who analyze Trump are unable to see this, because they too are infected with whiteness.
I mean, it appears to say what it says. Please tell me how I’m supposed to read it differently.
It is true that this particular crazy candidate manipulated racism as part of his winning strategy. A sane candidate could easily have done the same, in which case we could have seen a sane, racist president.
The fact that the Republican party has, over the past couple of decades, increasingly slipped into insanity isn’t traceable to whiteness alone, but to a whole host of factors. There is a strand of Christian crazy to it too (remember Ben Carson? He was a crazy, but Black, Republican candidate).
No-one doubts racism exists. There is a very reasonable doubt that it is as influential as claimed in this article - which does itself no favors (among the unbelievers) by making what sound like absurd, apocalyptic claims that the author themselves claim most folks would reject as “exaggerated”.
I don’t think anyone would disagree that Democrats have to field exciting candidates with an appealing platform, and appeal to a broad coalition.
The Democrats this article is attacking would, no doubt, claim that a myopic focus on racism as the issue underlying all others isn’t the way to do that.
Worse, claiming that the majority of the population is infected with wrongthink and that’s why they literally cannot accept the theory this author wishes to pursue (despite its inherent objective truth) - well, how do you win elections if you claim the majority is inherently unable see your points? You sort of need that majority to win.